Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's vaccine joke doesn't go down well with Twitterati; Biocon boss says 'lost our sense of humour'

Jokes are not welcome. Not when it comes to the vaccination drive, and not when they are in the form of a tweet - is a lesson Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw recently learnt.

India's richest self-made woman, with a net worth of $4 billion, had on Thursday shared a 'joke' with her 1.5 million Twitter followers, but it didn't go down well with Twitterati.

The backlash led to Shaw deleting her tweet and commenting that we "have lost our sense of humour."


"Since we have lost our sense of humour I am deleting my tweet - why has everyone become so serious? I can’t believe that folk actually think I am seriously suggesting that tax payers get priority over others!!," the the 68-year-old tweeted after deleting her earlier post.


The original tweet, meant to be funny, read, "Income tax payers should be given vaccine first...They are only 3 crore

"If they they die, how will the country survive."

While Shaw clarified that she only meant the tweet as a joke, it didn't stop her from receiving flak for it.

Dilip Mandal, founder, Center For Brahmin Studies, and member of the Editors Guild, was among those who criticised Shaw, calling her out for "cracking jokes on poor."

He went on to call Indian elites "pathological morons", adding that "all Indians pay taxes in some or other forms."


Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw recently ranked at the 727th spot on Forbes' 2021 Billionaires list. She also occupied the 27th spot on the magazine's India Richest 2020 list.